Page 25 of Drilled

“No, it doesn’t,” Bear confirmed. He gave Lane a look. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience. It’s well past time we clocked out.”

“Just clock out anyway,” she said, leaning back to reach for the leather card box off the end table. As she did, the soft jersey fabric pulled taut, outlining the lean, curve of her waist and the gentle swell of her chest.

I flicked my eyes to the side and caught Bear’s red ears as he cleared his throat. Dax, for all his crappy mood, still seemed jolly enough to stare shamelessly, even tilting his head to the side and only looking away when she shifted back to her sitting position.

Lane, evidently unaware of the quiet ructions she’d just caused, slid the cards from the box and began to shuffle them expertly, her slender, deft fingers moving with more skill than I was expecting. “Anyone up for Euchre?”

“Yeah!” I said enthusiastically, shuffling until I was sitting more comfortably. Bear shrugged and Dax stayed stubbornly quiet, but he was quickly overruled by the majority vote.

After she split the deck with a practiced, sharp snap that had all three of us raising our eyebrows, she dealt out five cards each in rapid succession, then flipped the top card of the remaining pile face up. A jack of clubs.

“Pairs. Silas, you’re with me. Boys, try to keep up,” she said without even checking and no one bothered to object. Not even Dax.

“You sound confident, Whittaker,” Bear said, a stifled smile dancing on his lips. “I hope you’ve got something to back up that challenge.”

“I’m not a poker player, Bear. I don’t bluff,” she said breezily.

Bear chuckled and shifted only to wince. It was a quick, fleeting expression but I watched Lane catch it.

“Oh, that reminds me. Hang on,” she said, getting up and disappearing to her room for a few moments only to reappear with a handful of heavy throw blankets. She handed one over to each of us.

When she handed one to Bear, his eyes flashed.

“Floor’s drafty down here. Take this before you start freezing and choking. I want a fair game when I beat the two of you,” she said smoothly.

Bear’s throat bobbed but he accepted the blanket, his movements slow. Even though she didn’t say it out loud, I knew that all three of us knew exactly why she did what she just did. It had little to do with her competitive streak, though I knew that was strong as hell.

The look in Bear’s eyes when she went back to her seat stirred something inside of me. Part of it was jealousy, I was man enough to admit that. But just a bit of it. The core truth of the matter was that I’d been friends with Bear for years. I cared about him, and to see someone offer him that kindness without making a big deal of it for the sake of his pride…it only made me like her more.

Dammit.

What kind of twisted scenario was that, where I was simultaneously jealous and happy that the woman I may have feelings for cared about my friend. Probably the same twisted world where I developed feelings for a client in the first place.

Then it hit me…Feelings. I’d breezed past that self-admission so quickly, it hadn’t really hit but now my heart was pounding like a drum at the thought of it. That was fine, I could surely admit to myself that I liked her. Who wouldn’t?

I was just a man and Lane was Lane.

I could surely get through a card game with her as my partner without making a fool of us myself like some high school boy with a crush.

“Ready?” Lane asked, taking up her cards.

I grinned. “Absolutely.”

The game moved at a breakneck speed, perfectly matching the frantic drumming of the storm outside. Lane and I fell into an easy, devastating rhythm. Every time Bear tried to play a conservative, tactical hand, Lane would cut him off with a high trump card, flashing me a wicked, victorious smirk that made my chest tighten.

Opposite us, the dynamic was pure chaos. Dax was playing entirely too aggressively, trying to lone-wolf the points, while Bear sat stiffly, his stoic patience wearing thin as he tried to manage Dax’s reckless moves.

"You're throwing the game, Miller," Bear grumbled, tossing his cards down as Lane took another trick.

Dax just scoffed, leaning back against the armchair and reaching for his empty bottle. "Maybe your strategy just sucks, Boss."

“This is exactly like the Astor plumbing fiasco a few months ago,” I chuckled, collecting another pile of cards Lane had just won for us.

She snapped to attention immediately. “That sounds ominous.”

“Oh, it was,” I confirmed, leaning back on my elbows.

“Company gag order, Sy, reel it in,” Dax warned me, his eyes narrowing over his hand.